The GOP and Anti-Intellectualism

Sarah Palin, reports show, attended 6 colleges in 6 years in order to graduate from the University of Idaho, currently a third tier school, with a degree in Journalism (not known to be a particularly difficult degree path at most schools). John McCain finished 894th of 899 students at the Naval Academy. Neither have gone on to pursue any further scholarship that I am aware of. So far, that's not the end of the world. Clearly, degrees from Harvard and Yale do not guarantee intelligence, let alone competence in governing, and I'm sure everyone can point to people with lesser academic credentials who are quite intelligent and successful, and even possibly qualified to run the country. What bothers me more is the way the GOP tries to paint a lack of academic credentials as an actual qualification, in and of itself, for the office of President.

In some ways, it is important for the President to be in touch with the struggles of normal Americans (which, of course, McCain and Palin aren't for other reasons), but that does not entail lacking education. There is, in fact, no way in which having a crappy education is actually a good thing, but the GOP tries to paint people with quality educations and real scholarly achievement as somehow elitist and snooty. I'm a very intelligent person who has had a quality education - no Ivy Leagues, but I went to a great college and I'm now at a top law school, so perhaps in their opinion, I'm not really qualified to talk about this, as I'm one of the snooty, well-educated people they like to complain about. I'm just not sure I understand how anyone can rationally argue that having a President with poor education isn't a bad thing, or that having a President with a good education isn't a good thing. It's a problem, not only for the immediate future, but for the long term future of our country when we start demonizing education. If we sneer at even adults who have demonstrated a love of and an aptitude for learning, how are we to expect children to ever want to succeed in school?

Basically, this GOP tactic reminds me of the bad old days before I went to a magnet high school. It was so uncool to be good at school or do your homework that I stopped! Thank God those grades didn't end up on my application for that magnet school, or I probably would have ended up with a much dimmer future than the one ahead of me now. It's supposed to stop being cool to pick on smart kids eventually, but for the GOP, I guess it never gets old. Personally, I'd rather elect a President who is smarter than I am, rather than equally or less smart. I know that most Americans would agree with that, were they to stop and think about it for a moment. I hope they do, before November 4.